Of course languages change, yet they may still remain the same. A definite statement about what is "the same" and what is "different" requires a norm, or a measure, which is elusive for such a complicated thing as language.***
Yet I believe that were Moses to reappeared today in a coffee house in Tel Aviv he would understand most of the talk.***
חמים, כוס, צלחת, עוגה, לחם, חמאה, ירקות טריים, מרק בשר, as well as the exclamation איזה ערב נעים but he would not recognize סוכר, קפה, עגבניה, מלפפון. He would certainly understand the people asking him מה הענינים מושיקו, הכול בסדר אצלכם Yet I suspect he would not recognize the people he took out of Egypt, but it should not take him more than a couple of days to adapt and become fluent in "modern" Hebrew.***
Isaac Fried, Boston University
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